"If you think one small thing can't make a difference, you've never spent a night with a mosquito."
anonymous, African proverb
"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience – well, that comes from poor judgment."
attributed to many writers
"If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else."
"Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical."
"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
"You can observe a lot by watching."
"It gets late early out there."
"It's pretty far, but it doesn't seem like it."
"You give 100% in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left."
"Yeah, but we're making great time!" (In reply to "I think we're lost.")
"What time is it? You mean now?"
"We made too many wrong mistakes."
"The future ain't what it used to be."
"If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be."
Berra, Yogi (1925 - 2015)
"I can't say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days."
Boone, Daniel (1734 - 1820)
"A superior [outdoorsman] uses his superior judgement to avoid situations that require the use of his superior skill."
Borman, Frank (From: Flying Lessons, Federal Aviation Administration, 8 January 2008)
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."
Buber, Martin (From: The Legend of the Baal-Shem, 1905)
"What keeps you safe: Experience, preparation, equipment and luck"
Callahan, Steven (From: Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea, 1986)
"He who suffers remembers."
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, attributed to (106 BC – 43 BC)
"No matter what happens to me in my life, I've always got the bush and that's like having a friend you can rely on forever."
Courtenay, Bryce (From: Four Fires, 2001)
"I was just thinking how proud I am of this river."
"... loons called from so far away ... their voices floated along like they were right next to the canoe, echoing one way, then back ... a call so sad it would fly through the air straight to your heart."
"There [are] seasons in your life when things [happen], and they never [happen] quite that way again. There [is] no way you [can] ever bring them back ... [You] write things down or [keep found items]. ... [You] save things in your heart, even if they [cannot] be written. ... the hand that held the pencil [grows] old and stiff, but you [always have] what you [can] keep in your heart."
"Fine evening. Fine river. Fine world. Life worth living."
"On a wet day build a big fire."
Davidson, James W and Rugge, John (From: Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure, 1988)
"I lay for a long time listening to the small noises of the night and in the drowsy exhaustion of a hard day's work allowed the happiness of a silent and forgotten land to come over me."
Downes, PG (From: Sleeping Island, 1943)
"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other."
Elliot, Walter (1842 - 1928)
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
Frost, Robert (1874 - 1963)
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
Frost, Robert (From: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, 1922)
"And ... remember ... the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK."
"How can I tell why I'm going? I could never tell you why. ... what the Eskimos call a 'journey in pursuit of itself'."
"Always stay and eat while you are traveling ... A man may face anything on a full stomach. He's perhaps the toughest animal on earth."
"It is comforting to know that some very old and very simple ways of getting from one place to another still work."
Fulghum, Robert (From: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, 1986)
"If you break your neck ... then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life IS lumpy. Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems."
[Learn] "... about the power of keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open."
"Uh-oh is ... a philosophy. It says to expect the unexpected, and also expect to be able to deal with it as it happens ..."
"The way OUT is IN." "Every exit is an entrance."
"What is the minimum daily adult requirement?" "... care must be taken in choosing what is essential and what is not. The packing ... becomes focused on economy, efficiency, and well-being. I think in elevated terms. Water. Fire. Shelter. Food. Protection from wind, rain, heat, cold. First aid. Knife. And tools to find my way - compass and map. The quality of the trip depends a great deal upon what I can live without."
"The Hudson's Bay Start" "(Camp the first night close to the starting point. This allows gear and supplies to be sorted so that if anything is forgotten it is easy to return to fetch it.)"
Fulghum, Robert (From: Uh-Oh, 1991)
"... find a way, or make one."
Hannibal, attributed to (247 BC – 183 or 181 BC)
"Paring down to the essentials brings home what really matters."
Hill, Barry (From: journal, August 2008)
"As the sun moves, so do I ..." [to keep in the shade on a hot day in camp]
Hill, Barry (From: journal, August 2018)
"Take care of little things and you'll do the big things right."
Hill, Barry (From: journal, July 2010)
"Men ... overestimate the life of clothing ... underestimate the cost."
Hill, Barry (From: journal, June 2012)
"Wisdom and caution increase with age. So does the need to do so."
Hill, Barry (From: journal, May 2012)
"Don't be discouraged, ... It gets much worse." [talking about lining the canoe and portaging]
Horwood, Harold (From: White Eskimo, 1972)
"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive."
Hubbard, Elbert (1856 - 1915)
"The water lapped slowly against the bank, like a slow and lazy pulsebeat. A dozing lake. Not much different from an old man sleeping in sunshine. Just enough breathing to keep alive. A good place. A good place."
"... he leaned forward and lightly touched the palm of his hand on the surface of the water. Tell me, he said silently, said inside his mind." "... a good place. He pushed his fingers into the water and wiggled them, paused, let his eyes scan the lake. Forty feet away ... the water roiled, quivered like a muscle." "A very good place."
"I forgot what day it was ..." "You walk far enough, you walk out of where one day ends and another one takes up ..."
Kay, Terry (From: The Valley of Light, 2001)
"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."
"Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it."
"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."
"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."
"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."
Lao Tzu (601 BC - ?)
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)
"I've always believed that the canoe is so important that there would be no Canadian history [without it] - no canoe, no Canada."
MacGregor, Roy (1948 - )
"... look ahead no more than four or five steps. It helps in long distance; breaking it into small, doable pieces ... you can handle." "... focus on what's in front ..." "the finish line will come ..."
Martin, Charles (From: The Mountain Between Us, 2010)
"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
"I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost."
"Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem."
"When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen."
"Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits ..."
"And by and by [he] came to the end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop."
"'Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?' ‘Supposing it didn't,' said Pooh after careful thought."
"'What day is it?' ... 'It's today' ... 'My favorite day' ..."
"They're funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you're having them."
Milne, AA (From: Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926)
"Going to the woods is going home."
"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt."
"As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing ... and get as near the heart of the world as I can".
"In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks."
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."
"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul."
"Wander a whole summer if you can ... time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will definitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal.”
"Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you."
Muir, John (1838 – 1914)
"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?"
Paige, Leroy Robert "Satchel" (1906 – 1982)
"... I was whistling and singing as I proceeded northward into a stiff headwind. Paradoxically perhaps, I find that being alone in the wilderness calms the soul and excites the senses."
"I am always surprised at how unreliable or selective memory is. There always seems to be a general tendency to remember events in a more positive light."
Pohl, Herb (From: The Lure of Faraway Places: Reflections on Wilderness and Solitude, 2007)
"I used to think that going light and roughing it was the thing to do. ... but I find that the good woodsman ... takes what he needs to live comfortably, making use of what comes to hand wherever he is. No need to be uncomfortable just because you are camping."
"To be sure we have seen a lot of the north country, but if we lived a hundred years longer we would not have time to visit the thousands of lakes, big and little. So when we travel we are adventurers exploring new territory, never being sure what we will find."
"I ... learned from ... experience that a long portage is often the safest and shortest way home."
"... listening to the 'voices of the rapids'. In the everchanging sounds of falling water you can hear ... the pealing of church bells and deep-throated organ music, the songs of the north country, the voices of men and the laughter of children. You can hear the roar of the north winds and the whisper of a summer night breeze in the pine tops. Sometimes when the wind changes the sound fades and the music of fiddles will come clear and sweet. And I have heard the wild booming of Indian drums echoing in the hills."
"... security and happiness are one and the same thing. On a stormy night when the trees thrash in the high winds that claw at the eaves, I sit listening to the murmuring of the fire in the ... stove, at peace with myself and the world. Give me food to keep me strong, wood to keep me warm, good friends to talk to me, fine books to read, and I have all I need."
Rowlands, John J (From: Cache Lake Country: Life in the North Woods, 1947)
"Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can."
Sparks, Nicholas (From: At First Sight, 2005)
"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path ... ."
Strode, Muriel (1875–1964)
"... you can't always get what you want ... but ... sometimes you ... get what you need."
The Rolling Stones (From: You Can't Always Get What You Want, 1969)
"There is nothing like looking [for better shelter], if you want to find something .... You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after."
"All was well, until one day they met a thunderstorm - more than a thunderstorm, a thunder-battle. You know how terrific a really big thunderstorm can be down in the land and in a river-valley; especially at times when two great thunderstorms meet and clash. More terrible still are thunder and lightning ... at night, when storms come up from East and West and make war. The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks shiver, and great crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every ... hollow; and the darkness is filled with overwhelming noise and sudden light." "Then came a wind and a rain, and the wind whipped the rain and the hail about in every direction, so that an overhanging rock was no protection at all."
"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."
Tolkien, JRR (From: The Hobbit, 1937)
"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."
Tom Hanks (in: A League of Their Own, 1992) (screenplay by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, story by Kim Wilson & Kelly Candaele)
"Well, come on, we're burnin' daylight."
Wayne, John and others (From: The Cowboys, 1972)
"... there was something else here that was not anywhere else. It was an enormous stillness that made you feel still. And when you were still, you could feel great stillness coming closer. All the little sounds ... [of nature] could not touch the enormous silence of this [wilderness]."
Wilder, Laura Ingalls (From: By the Shores of Silver Lake, 1939)
"Mosquitoes remind us that we are not as high up in the food chain as we think."
Wilson, Thomas Francis (1959 - )
"Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time."
"Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."
"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."
Wright, Steven Alexander (1955 - )
"... we need to move beyond our comfort zones, whatever they might be. When we are surrounded by safety and the known, it's just natural for us to be not our largest selves."
York, Alissa (1970 - )
